The Notebook

No, I'm not talking about the movie. Although, it is one of my favorites.

I'm talking about an actual notebook, an old one with a broken spiral and a stained cover that is sitting in front of me right now. It's one that's been around the house for a few years but has never really served a specific purpose. Honestly, I'm surprised that the kids haven't made off with it and used all of the paper in it by now.

However, it now has a purpose. I've been sitting here for the last hour or so, carefully crunching numbers. Maybe it's the impending new year with all of its potential, maybe it's frustration with where I'm at financially at the moment, maybe it's just the weird mood that I've been in for the past few days coupled with a few realizations of what I want to do with my life in the next year or so....

Maybe it's a combination of all of that. But regardless of what "it" is, I'm formulating plans. On paper, even. I'm figuring and re-figuring my budget. I'm figuring out a way to actually get some money into savings - starting this month - so that I can make some changes happen when I want them to happen without being totally stressed about money all of the time.

Living on a fixed income is not easy. It is nice to know exactly how much money is coming in and when, and it's easy to live day-to-day on that. But when emergencies like a busted transmission or an abscessed tooth happen, it's hard to come up with the extra to take care of those things. Now that I've been able to pay off some bills, it will be a little easier to build in a cushion each month to make those unexpected expenses easier to handle. And having that little extra cushion will also help us to be able to make some other things happen - including combining two households into one within the next 6 months or so.

Willpower has never been one of my strengths. In fact, I've always been horrible about it. Hopefully,  putting it all on paper (not to mention putting it "out there" for everyone to see) will give me the motivation to be able to stick with it and actually make progress.